Bo Xilai Officially Implicated In His Wife's Murder Scandal

China has formally implicated disgraced politician Bo Xilai in
the scandal over his wife Gu Kailai's murder of a British
businessman during the trial of a former police chief.

A report from state news agency Xinhua published on Wednesday
does not mention Bo by name. But it says that Wang Lijun
attempted to tell "the Chongqing party committee's main
responsible person at the time" that Gu was suspected of killing
Neil Heywood. Bo was then the south-western city's party boss.

Wang, whom Bo had hired to spearhead an anti-gang crackdown, "was
angrily scolded and hit" after raising the matter, according to
the testimony of another police officer read at the hearings in
Chengdu this week.

The corruption cases raised by the prosecution also involve
businessmen known to be close to Bo.

The comments increase the prospect that the former political
high-flyer may face criminal charges himself. Until now
authorities have shied away from connecting Bo to the case,
though accounts of his encounter with Wang had already surfaced.
The authorities have not commented on Bo since April when it was
announced that he was under an internal Communist party
investigation for breaching discipline.

The matter is particularly sensitive as China's power transition
fast approaches. Bo was once tipped as a contender for top
political office and won popular supports with campaigns such as
the drive against organized crime. But he antagonized many within
the party with his evident ambition and alarmed liberals with his
willingness to trample over human rights.

But Kerry Brown, an expert on Chinese politics at the
Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy, said the
party could still deal with Bo's case internally, adding: "It
seems to have been very rigorous in keeping Bo's malfeasance
apart from Gu's.

"That kind of story [about the confrontation] was so well-known
that it was hard not to try to address it."

He added: "I can't see any big gains from totally trashing Bo
now. Not going for the jugular might be more sensible,
particularly at the moment."

According to the Xinhua report, the 52 year old secretly recorded
Gu's confession to murdering Heywood the day after the killing
last November, but did not initially act on it.

"After arriving in Chongqing, I would often go to the home of
Bogu Kailai. I felt Bogu Kailai was very good to me," Xinhua
said, citing Wang's testimony. "At the time, my selfish motives
were guiding me. I didn't want to face this case."

According to Gu's aide Zhang Xiaojun – also convicted of
Heywood's murder – Wang phoned hours after the body was cremated,
to utter a coded eight-character message to her: "It turned into
blue smoke, flying away to the west with the cranes."

But as time went on, Wang felt Gu was turning on him, Xinhua
added. As his colleagues became targets of "illegal
investigations", he began to feel in danger and decided to
escape.

That triggered his dash to the US consulate in Chengdu, where he
told diplomats of his suspicions – leading to the British demands
for a reinvestigation of Heywood's death. Within two months, Bo
had been ousted and Gu was detained for murder. Last month she
received a suspended death sentence.

Xinhua said the Wang's trial also heard that entrepreneur Xu Ming
offered homes worth over 2.85m yuan to a relative of the former
police chief's in return for the release of three associates who
had been detained in Chongqing. Xu, whose association with Bo
stretched over two decades, has not been seen since March and is
assumed to be in custody.

The former intelligence agent Yu Junshi, another long term
associate of Bo's who is thought to have been detained since
spring, was cited as renting villas for Wang in exchange for the
release of another man.